Deeplinks Blog posts about No Downtime for Free Speech

Last week, a federal appeals court rejected luxury goods retailer Tiffany’s claim that eBay should be liable for trademark violations on its site based on general knowledge that such infringement is happening (but no specific knowledge of a specific infringement). The ruling is a victory for online service providers, eBay sellers, and consumers alike.

Today, after three years of litigation, the Viacom v. YouTube combatants finally publicly released their briefs (Viacom's; YouTube's; Class Action Plaintiffs') in what most expect to be the main event in the case, namely, cross-motions for summary judgment (for the non-lawyers: a summary judgment motion asks the court to rule that the case is such a slam dunk in your favor that no trial is necessary).

The Fox News Channel boasts that it takes a different approach to news coverage than, say, CBS, NBC, or NPR. But it appears Fox takes the same approach as its competitors when it comes to fair uses of its news coverage in political advertisements: to try to shut them down using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's rapid-fire notice and takedown process.

We often criticize DMCA takedown abuse here at EFF, but last week's Cryptome snafu highlights another facet of the problem: how a DMCA takedown for one item can result in the removal of lots of lawful material.

As we've pointedoutrepeatedly, poor design decisions in YouTube's "Content ID" system have resulted in over-blocking of videos that remix copyrighted materials. Today we got perhaps the most vivid example of the problem: the "silencing" of a lecture by Prof. Larry Lessig about the cultural importance of remix creativity. This is just the latest of many examples. We've been on YouTube's case for more than two years about this problem, and it's high time for YouTube to fix the Content ID system to respect the kinds of fair uses that are at the heart of remix creativity.